Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Walking into Heaven . . . Sort of

The hospital in which I work has been in the process of changing the color scheme. The hallways have been shades of browns, from dark beige to actual brown. Now they are white. . .crisp, clean bright, white. The first time I rounded a corner and encountered one of these newly painted hallways I felt as I had stepped into heaven.In fact, the change had been so seamless, almost instantaneous, it reminded me of a conversation I had with our dear friend Tom Webb on March 19, 1997. If you have read this blog for any length of time you will be familiar with this story. Tom had heard the news my father had passed away unexpectedly the day before. He called me and said, "I heard your father moved to a better neighborhood." My father had been taking a letter which had been mis-delivered to his house. The doctor told me he probably never knew "what hit him" referring to his heart attack. He took one step down his road and the next into Heaven.When I walked from the brown hallway into the white hallway there was no delay, no lag in my step, no stopping. I was walking in one hall and then suddenly I was walking in another. I am convinced this will be how our change from this life of mortality, to our lives of immortality will be. Like my Daddy, one step here, one step there, like walking through a portal.